


Dulce et Decorum Est

by Nilaza



Series: We Were Soldiers Once [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Battle, Blood and Violence, Gen, M/M, Nameless characters die, The Empire Loses, post endor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-25 03:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16653610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilaza/pseuds/Nilaza
Summary: Jakku is a disaster for the empire. Lorth Needa crashes onto the planet, and survives by pure luck.





	Dulce et Decorum Est

The landing was hard, the entire TIE-fighter quaked on impact, and Needa’s teeth rattled, He thanked the gods for the impact dampeners in the craft. The TIE screeched across the surface of Jakku, spraying sand everywhere and dragging a large scorch mark behind it. 

As soon as it held still, Needa undid the seatbelt and forced open the jammed cockpit door so he could get out before any Rebel decided to finish the job.

He stumbled out not far away from the crashed ISD Stalker, wherehe had initially joined the fight, its rear end was still on fire, and small debris was raining down everywhere from the sky. Debris and pieces from aircrafts, AT-AT’s, and other military equipment of both Imperial and Rebel origin were scattered across the desert as far as the eye could see. 

Among them lay bodies in deep impact craters from explosions. The air was hot and smoky, and above, TIE-fighters and X-wings were still engaged in dogfights. South of his current position, blaster fire was heard from the ground battle.

The sun was hidden behind a thick fog of smoke and dust and sand. It burned Needa’s nose at every inhale, and he coughed as he moved away from his crashed TIE. He was uninjured aside from a few scratches and bruises.

The Admiralty had been determined to make a stand at Jakku but had been able to gather precious few of the remaining Imperial factions for it, and they had been outgunned from the start. Needa had not flown a fighter since the early days of the Clone Wars, and he was not the only one on the Imperialside who had lacked the practice. He managed to shoot two of them before the Rebels hit him back and he crashed.

The Stalker had been defeated after a valiant battle, and now only its sister ship and a few TIE-fighters held their stand in the sky.

Needa didn’t have to walk long before he spotted the frontline of the Empire’s ranks. And the saturation seemed as hopeless down here as it had in space: Two AT-AT’s lay in shambles close to each other, and two regiments mostly consisting of stormtroopers were valiantly defending the line. Behind them, Needa could see the bombed-out remains of a camp, the shield generator in pieces, and a barricade still valiantly holding it. Officers roared commands over the sounds of explosion and screams from the troopers shot and torn to pieces.

The Rebels bore down on them. They were barely able to keep it together among the dying and defeated and the debris of ships around them. Imperials and Rebels fought each  
other among the fragments.

A deafening explosion rolled through the air, and the ground under his feet shivered. A blast wave carrying sand and debris smashed through the area, throwing everyone to the ground. Needa rolled several feet and banged hit his head on the wing of another crashed TIE.

When he looked up, he saw the massive rear end of their second ISD Tarkin crashing to the ground, on fire and falling apart as it descended. Needa gasped for air, the sight turning him cold. The ground trembled again as the massive ship struck it, everyone who’d managed to get up was thrown to the ground a second time. The battlefield was cloaked in black smoke from the burning hull and for several minutes, only the flashing lights from both sides’ artillery bombardment was visible.

Needa’s eyes stung, and his ears were ringing as he fumbled for his blaster to defend himself. With a racing heart he peaked out from behind the TIE wing he was hiding behind. A blaster rifle was aimed at him, and he quickly curled back up behind the wing as it fired.

He coughed again, his lungs filling with smoke and dust, though he returned fire, got to his feet and made it for the Imperial line. Nine Corellian hells, he never wanted to be a footsoldier.

Someone provided him with cover fire as he ran the last few feet to reach the line, covering behind a temporary shield beside a sweaty stormtrooper, who’d lost his helmet and was bleeding from a cut in his forehead. His sweaty hair was plastered to his head, and he nodded as a way of greeting. “Glad you made it over here, sir, I saw you behind the TIE.”

It was all they had time for before they had to return fire and run for cover, as the piece of durasteel they were hiding behind was under heavy bombardment.

“Fall back!” a voice shouted over the noise, interrupted by a cough. “Fall back to the barricade!”

Tarkin’s command bridge hit the ground, sending more shock waves through it. Needa was sure the noise would deafen him. Units not fast enough to get out of the way were crushed beneath sand and burning durasteel.

Two batteries of blaster torrents provided cover fire, as Needa and the unit of stormtroopers he had briefly joined obeyed the orders and fell back towards the barricade. The sound of  
the battle drowned out any other order within miles.

The ground exploded close by, and Needa was thrown, he rolled to the side and shielded his head and upper body. Another body landed close by, spraying Needa’s clothes with a mixture of dirt and blood; the trooper’s torso was blown to bits, and mercifully the poor bastard was already dead.

His whole body was aching as he carefully came to his feet and sprinted for the barricade a few feet ahead, shots flying overhead and around him. The sand was firming up with blood in some places, but it only made it more slippery, and every other minute, one of the dunes gave way under the grenades, resulting in sand slides of caky, bloody sand, bodies and material. Of all the darn places to have a battle, Needa growled under his breath as he fell over something sticking up from the sand, and almost brained himself on a Rebel helmet. He managed to take the fall on his hands and earned himself new scratches. 

He finally made it behind the solid durasteel barricade, and the brief sense of security it provided. Needa leaned against the wall between two stormtroopers, breathing heavily. 

One of the soldiers turned and offered him his water bottle, holding his assault rifle with the other hand.

Needa thanked him profusely. The water was lukewarm but heavenly on his raw, dry throat. His heart was hammering, his legs trembling, and he was clammy with sweat inside his jumpsuit. He was painfully aware how useless his tiny blaster was in all this.

The Tarkin had carried most of the ground assault troops. He saw that realization in the eyes of the trooper as he handed him back the bottle in silence.

He heard more shouting. Another unit of soldiers were making their way towards the barricade, defending themselves well against the Rebels as they did. Among them was a large officer, whose voice penetrated the racket like a knife through butter; “Hold formation! Everyone get back out here and attack, you shit-eating, miserable vomprats! Get the fuck off your asses and die for the Empire, or I’ll jam my blaster so far up your asses I can use your mouths as sniping scopes!”

Needa already knew that General Veers was here, he had spotted him on the roster of commanding officers. The General was in dirty and dented combat gear, sporting a beard and holding a heavy assault rifle in his hands, returning fire and yelling orders.  
The troopers jumped like stung pigs to regroup and form an attack formation, and Needa could not blame them, Veers sounded like the prototype of the worst sort of drill sergeant.

An X-wing flew low, Needa heard the whine of its engines before the thunder of its frontal battery as it blared down towards the Imperial line.

A large chunk of the durasteel barricade gave in and exploded, and Needa ran for cover and was again thrown on his ass. His tailbone ached, as did his ears, and the air was knocked from his lungs as he smashed hard against another body. He curled to protect his head and torso, waiting for his senses to return.

His ears stopped ringing, and there was no more shooting after a few moments. The ground under and around him was smeared with blood and torn bodies with large chunks of the durasteel barricade buried in them. The body above him had been pierced by a ten inches piece of shrapnel. Needa’s stomach turned; Dammit he was not a foot soldier, he never desired to be a damn dirtpounder. He hauled himself up yet again, ignoring his body’s violent protests. Around him lay more soldiers, all dead. He had never been a man of faith, but this just might make him one.

Veers lay a few feet away, stirring as Needa walked towards him, keeping an eye out for the enemy. Veers’ armor had taken a pounding, but he had luckily been out of the range of the shrapnel.

“Veers?”

Veers whipped his head around to look and raised his blaster at Needa.

A loud sound alerted Needa and he shouted a warning. Veers came to his feet quickly, and they both ran for cover behind a large chunk of a disabled AT-AT.

Veers was breathing as hard as Needa, “Rotten scum the lot of them,” he spat, but if it was out of disgust, or to rinse his mouth Needa couldn’t tell. Up close, the General looked haggard; unkept beard and deep age lines in his red face, and a body odour that told Needa showering was not high up his list of priorities. His eyes were bloodshot and there was an unhinged glimmer in them. 

“Veers –“ Another explosion rocked the ground and drowned his words and they both had to take cover.

The attacking X-wings moved on, and Needa and Veers spotted a last TIE-fighter hurling to the ground and disappearing in a blast of fire and smoke. The cannons had stopped blaring on both sides.

“Cowards!” Veers snarled, almost making Needa jump out of his skin. Veers threatened at the departing X-wings and dropships. “I am right here, you cocklickers! Come back and finished the job, you cunts!” He continued snarling blood-curdling cusses to the sky.

Needa crouched and leaned against their shelter, taking off his flight helmet and closing his eyes for a moment. He felt exhausted, his legs trembled slightly. It was over, and the Empire had lost. If he had had just the slightest hope of avenging Endor, it was now extinguished. Needa leaned his tingly head to the wall, his shoulders sagged, and he felt cold despite the hot air and the sweat still running off him.

It had been a year since Endor, and they had hardly had a single victory. He had been there when the Empire was born, he did not imagine he’d live to its death.

If only he had Jerjerrod at his side.

Bloody hell he needed a smoke, and something to drink.

Veers kicked the AT-AT hard, and Needa’s eyes flew open as the wall vibrated with the impact. He scowled up at Veers who seemed to notice him again but elected to ignore the glare. 

“How the fuck did you end up down here, Captain?”

Needa came to his feet, “My TIE crashed.” He looked around at the desolation surrounding them, “I suppose all ships here are unusable, but we have to find some shelter for the night.” The air was still thick with dust and smoke, but low sunbeams filtered through and illuminated the durasteel scattered about.

Needa stretched out and made a face when his back complained, he had taken a pounding today. He looked around and spotted a dropship that was still holding itself together.  
They went down to the imperial camp and the dropship, where they found an intact supply crate containing a couple of disgusting but to Needa heavenly tasting Navy protein slurries, a med kit, and bottles of whiskey.

Needa sat on an old supply crate and flushed his slurry down with a drink of whisky from a tin cup, while Veers sat on another crate, looking out over the battlefield in silence. He didn’t bother with a cup, but drank straight from the bottle he had already halfway emptied. Veers had not eaten anything, and barely accepted the bacta Needa pushed into his hands to treat his wounds, none of them grave, fortunately.

“Are you trying to off yourself with drink now that the Rebels didn’t manage?” Needa enquired. The stuff was Corellian, and it hit hard.

“Butt around, Captain” Veers growled. “We lost, blast it all.” He took a large drink from the bottle, but then turned his head and the angry look on his face almost made Needa flinch “How the fuck did you survive Endor?”

“I was not there,” Needa said and a pang of guilt pierced him. He wasn’t arrogant enough to assume he alone would have turned the tide of battle, but knowing he was not even there to try pained him. “I was on medical leave. What about you?” He took a sip from his cup to dampen the memory of watching DSII explode on a holorecording that even now made him feel as if his guts had been replaced by molten lava.

“Yes, I was, Force help me,” Veers took a large drink from the bottle. He heaved a sigh and leaned on the wall, “And they couldn’t fucking hit me there, either,” he mumbled and took another large drink.

Needa sighed too, he wished he’d gone down with the Avenger himself. He heard Veers mumble something, but did not ask for clarification. He sat in silence and allowed himself to at least appreciate not being shot at for the moment. The DS had been a trap, and the Empire had not given a shit that Tiaan Jerjerrod sat on top of a terminal detonator waiting to explode. 

Needa knew that in wartime sacrifices were expected. He himself was willing to give his life for the Empire, but Jerjerrod had been a geeky engineer and architect, not a soldier, and the Empire had treated him like a lure. 

“How could we lose?” Veers’ voice broke into Needa’s thoughts. His eyes were bloodshot and his gaze unfocused, “How the fuck could we lose!” His voice was strained, and he banged his fist against the durasteel hard enough it must have hurt, but Veers seemed to pay it no mind.

Needa made a face, they could not be sure they were alone out here. “Veers –“

“Stuff it, Captain.” Veers tossed the empty bottle aside, and grabbed for the one Needa had only taken a small cup out of, nearly pushing Needa down from the crate as he did. Needa let him have it and watched as he unscrewed the lit and drank.

Needa drank from his cup too and savored the burning feeling that countered the coldness of the desert night. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself, sat cross-legged on the supply crate, and observed Veers.

He knew he would stick with Veers. He also knew it would not be a smooth ride, it had only been a few hours since they’d met up, but Veers gave out all signs of unhinged danger. 

Veers almost emptied half the bottle in one go and sat down on the other crate with a thud that made Needa wince in sympathy for his tailbone.

“General, I don’t think that helps.” Veers had not eaten anything, and he had been in battle all day. He was not interested in yet another corpse lying around.

Veers snorted, “What do you know? I can still hear you blabber, means I’m not nearly drunk enough.” He sipped from the bottle again. “Blast all of it,” sip. “The Rebels” sip, “the Empire ”, sip, “the whole damn universe and myself,” sip.

Needa was inclined to agree.

**Author's Note:**

> The title means "It is sweet and honourable" and is the beginning of a WW1 poem, the sentence continued "to die for one's country". The meaning of the poem is of course that such a sentiment is untrue.


End file.
